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Yes, folks, there’s a new sheriff in town. Sure, he looks…different. He’s got a funny name and he’s fresh off the boat from the old country, but he means business. He’s also looking for an outlaw by the name of CTS-V who claims to be the fastest production sedan…in the world.
Commence semantic quibbling over what the Porsche Panamera is. It’s a sedan…wait, no, it’s a hatchback. A wagon? Who knows. It doesn’t matter, really. It’s fast; faster than any Cadillac CTS-V you can throw at it.

But wait, the CTS-V is a damn fast car, ain’t it? You bet it is. The sedan will blast 60 mph in 4 seconds flat. The Coupe? 4.1 seconds. The Wagon? 4.2. Few sedans can tangle with this Caddy and win. The Panamera is one of them. Oh, did we mention the Panamera gets better gas mileage, too…

How? As any poker player will tell you, a pair beats a high card. One supercharger, no matter how super, simply ain’t a match for twin turbos. Put another way, the Caddy’s 8.7 psi of supercharger boost can’t hold a candle to the 12 psi available from the Porsche‘s twin turbos, much less the 13.2 psi on tap thanks to the overboost feature as part of the Sport Chrono Package Plus our test car came equipped with.

Hang on a minute, though. The CTS-V’s 6.2-liter V-8 makes 556 horsepower, while the porky Porsche’s little twin-turbo 4.8-liter V-8 makes just 500 horsepower (which we suspect may be underrated). True enough, but the Porsche pounds out some 563 pound-feet of torque to the Cadillac‘s 550 pound-feet. But the Cadillac weighs less. Also true, as our Panamera Turbo weighed in at a portly 4486 pounds, more than 100 pounds heavier than the weightiest CTS-V we’ve tested and 300 pounds heavier than the lightest. Still doesn’t matter.

The Porsche Panamera Turbo will accelerate to 60 mph in just 3.5 seconds. Let that sink in a moment. No superlatives, no absurd analogies, because they just don’t do it justice. Three-and-a-half seconds to 60 mph in a car that weighs nearly 4500 pounds and seats four 6-footers comfortably. It’s unreal, and it doesn’t stop there. The Panamera Turbo traps the quarter-mile in just 11.9 seconds at 114.7 mph, well ahead of the fastest CTS-V we’ve tested, a Coupe that needed 12.3 seconds at 117.7 mph to do the deed.

The Panamera ain’t no one-trick pony, either. Our tester, equipped with big steel rotors rather than the fancy optional carbon-ceramic stoppers, dropped from 60 mph to a standstill in 109 feet, just 4 feet farther than the best-braked CTS-V we’ve tested. Then we headed to the skidpad, and the Cadillac’s moment of glory ended abruptly. Our all-wheel drive, adaptive air suspension-equipped Turbo pulled an astonishing 1.0 g average on the skid pad and laid down a figure eight lap in just 24.4 seconds at 0.81 g average. The Cadillac’s best performance was 0.95 g average on the pad and a 25.0-second figure eight lap at 0.80 g average.

Take stock of all those numbers for a moment. The Panamera Turbo outperforms a Corvette Grand Sport in every measure and is nipping on the heels of the Z06. It’s not that far off a Ferrari 458 Italia, particularly on the skidpad, and easily outguns its nearest direct competitors, the Aston Martin Rapide and the Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG.

The wordsmiths among you may be raising your hands now. After all, Cadillac’s ad says the CTS-V is the “world’s fastest production sedan,” not the quickest. And you’re right. While the PDK automatic-only Panamera Turbo is faster than the automatic-transmission CTS-V, the Porsche tops out at 188 mph to the manual-equipped CTS-V’s 191 mph. But then, Cadillac’s claim wasn’t predicated on claimed top speed. It was based on the CTS-V’s 7-minute-and-59-second lap of the Nürburgring, which the Panamera Turbo reportedly smoked by 3 seconds back in 2009.

How’s this possible? The Porsche and the Cadillac even wear the same tires, Michelin Pilot Sport PS2s in similar sizes. The answer, in a word, is traction. The rear-wheel-drive Cadillac just can’t quite put all its power down, and it shows on the drag strip, the skidpad, and the track. Thanks to its brilliant all-wheel drive system, getting the most out of the Porsche is as simple as engaging launch control and mashing the pedals. In the corners, the front wheels dig into the road and provide grip that will force the smile off your face.

The simple fact is that there is virtually no other car in the world that can do what this one can. It’s faster than any reasonable competitor, grips better than most non-exotic sports cars, offers a ridiculous amount of passenger and cargo space for its mission, coddles the occupants in top-shelf luxury, and does it all smoothly, quietly, and without the slightest bit of fuss. Of course, this kind of world-beating ability comes at a price, and it’s a steep one. The base price is more than twice that of the CTS-V at $136,275. Our as-tested price rang in at a staggering $164,145, approaching three times the price of the Cadillac. But hey, it’s a bargain next to the $200,000 Rapide, right?

Take solace, Cadillac fans, in the fact that CTS-V nearly keeps up with a car twice its price — it’s an impressive achievement. The rest of us will be at the Porsche dealer figuring out how many internal organs we can safely sell. New sheriff? Try new king.

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